And guess who was in the class with the team members? You guessed it -- the wrong-cheering cheerleader.

According to the LA Times article that first revealed what was going on, 20 USC athletes - 12 of them football players - signed up for Spanish 3 at LATTC. The course was being taught by Senora Rose Mary Ross, a 73 year old grandmother with a reputation for having a very generous grading philosophy.

How generous? Well, she summed up her teaching philosophy this way: "The most important thing in learning is that everyone likes the teacher," she said.

And judging from the grades, they must have loved her.

Of the 25 total students in her class, 5 got a "B" and the rest got an "A" - including offensive lineman Matt Spanos, who sat out the 2006 season and was barred from the Rose Bowl for shitty grades. But not surprisingly, he described Senora Ross' class as, "extremely relaxed. Every day Senora Ross had a fun little story about her life and places she'd been to. She made it easy to learn."

Yes, Matt, I bet she did. Although being able to order from the Taco Bell menu on your first try probably doesn't count as being fluent in Spanish by most college standards.

The teacher had such an easy rep, she was swamped by Trojan athletes for her class, whose credits transfer to USC. But when word got out about what was going, the university was so embarrassed, they are making the students retake the class -- and not at "Lettuce" Community College.

Funniest thing about the story - besides the cheerleader angle - is that the football players being forced to take Spanish again are pissed and don't understand why they should have to take the class over.

18 comments:

Anonymous
said...

It's an old trick used by a lot of students (not limited to student athletes): if there's a class at your school that you know will give you trouble, you can find a similar class at a neihgboring community college and substitute it for your required class (you have to make sure it will transfer first, of course). The grade you get (as long as it's above a C) doesn't matter, b/c the grade doesn't transfer, just the credit. I know that some of you might have a problem with it, but, really, one of the reasons young men go to college is to LEARN HOW TO WORK THE SYSTEM (it will serve them well in their future life).

USC is very strict about transfer credits...and this "class" was caught by academic services before any athletes recieved credit for it. None of these kids ever recieved any credit for the class! Let's not pretend like USC is...oh I don know...Ohio State!

This story just shows that USC doesnt turn a blind eye to athlete's academics.

Yeah, let's not pretend that USC is Ohio State. OSU was cleared by the NCAA investigation (related to both education and improper benefits). Last i heard USC latest Heisman trophy winner was in hot water over $200,000 worth of proper benefits. You'll say that it's not a fact, since it's still being investigated. But let's look a little deeper: the guy wasn't allowed on the USC sideline for the Rose Bowl. If that doesn't look like an admission of guilt by USC then i don't know what does.The truth is both OSU and USC have some very rigorous academic programs. It's just that student athletes, for the most part, aren't there to take advantage of the academic opportunities that their respective institutions have to offer: they're in school so that they can play their sport, stay elligible, and (maybe) get a degree. So let's not put down whole universities and communities. Concentrate on football, after all it's a college football blog. And a very good one.

I see anon tOSU revisionist historian troll is back -- and they've forgotten about Andy Katzenmoyer.

In all fairness this unfortunately happens at my beloved Meechigan too. The things which get me steamed is players on the take (Chris Webber, Reggie Bush and/or his family... and by the way, they knew the regs; everyone and their family gets briefed as a freshman) and the way student athletes in sports other than football and basketball doing it the right way who get lumped in with all the other knuckleheads.

When I was at UM, there were some summer courses, highly accelerated, which folks used to knock out credits quickly. I remember a particular geology course which had pretty much the entire football team in it. This class became known as "rocks for jocks" around the Diag.

BTW, what does a tOSU grad and a UM grad have in common? They both applied to Michigan. Just thought I’d stir the anon pot a little.

mgoblue93:i don't think you can read very well (must be a a trait common to you scUM grads). I said that although some of the programs at OSU and USC are rigorous that doesn't apply to any course of study taken by the (so called) student-athletes (mostly football and basketball players). Big Kat was a dumb-@ss, you won't find too many people that would argue against that.As far as andy's and t9's rankings, i said "some programs are rigourous". If you look at top public research universities you will find OSU among the top 10.Also, i wasn't trying to offend anyone, but here's a nugget for you: some people go to a certain school not because they have problems with admissions to other schools, but b/c of $$$. My family couldn't afford for me to go all but one school that i got in to. The one school they could afford was a state school (you can probably guess which one).

Perhaps the reason why us "scUM" have a hard time reading what you write is the way you write. I know it is lame to attack grammar on the 'Net but at no point in your 6:40 post did you even make even a half-assed attempt to write clearly.

some people go to a certain school not because they have problems with admissions to other schools, but b/c of $$$

Cry me a FUCKING river... at least your parents helped out!!! Every penny of my college education was either paid for me or secured by me. It involved a grant, pimping myself for every $250.00 to $500.00 scholarship I could find, and a lot of hard work in and out of the classroom. Granted, there were a lot of times eating fancy involved buying the $0.99 ramen instead of the ten for a dollar ramen but I’ve never used my lot in life as an excuse – get over yourself, jerky.

That take about scUM being elitist and privileged is soooo played out in this blog; try to come up with something original!

ok, pardon my grammar/clarity (english isn't my first language). May be this will make my point clearer:

1) i wasn't complaining about not having enough $$$, just merely stating that it's a deciding factor on where i could afford to go to school. I'm sorry your family didn't help out with your education, but that's no reason to be rude to someone you don't know just because their family pitched in.

2) also, i went back and read over my 6:40 post, and i'm still not sure where exactly i was calling any UM grad/fan "elitist". Maybe you can clarify that for me.

The part that i hate is that i was merely pointing out that there's different points of view to the same story, without trying to be offensive and/or get into an argument. But, somehow, somewhere along the line i failed, hence the percieved "pissing contest" that me and respected "MGoBlue93" got into here.It's unfortunate that nowadays lots of people can't have a discussion even with a reasonable college football fan whose opinion is slightly different from theirs.

i don't even have to prove my point, you did it for me. Instead of stereotyping people and telling people that go to OSU (or some place else) that you somehow know they really wanted to go to UM (which we both know isn't true) you need to concentrate on college football.

I beleive that my first post (9:08 am) had nothing to do with UM, nor did it make any attempts in revising history. But when i made the statements that i made (only in regards to USC/OSU) i was called an "tOSU revisionist troll". That's why you were called "scUM" (in my second post), which (i admit) may have been a little over the top.

It seems that you're very good at splitting behavior: instead of attacking what i say (which should be the case in an argument), you attack how i say it, without addressing the points i made. I'm all for a good argument, but that's not what this is.

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